A millionaire property tycoon accused of murdering his pregnant wife had their flat professionally cleaned and redecorated within weeks of her disappearance, a court heard.

Robert Ekaireb, 38, also moved out of the Hampstead apartment and let it to tenants shortly after his ex-lapdancer Chinese wife Li Hau Cao, 27, disappeared without a trace in October 2006.

The Old Bailey heard within two weeks Ekaireb had enlisted a specialist marble cleaning company and made plans to recarpet the flat throughout.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said there was “no obligation or request” from the Japanese family, who let the flat, to redecorate it.

And when shown photographs, the previous owner of the flat said the new carpets looked identical to the ones that were already present when he sold it to Ekaireb eight years previously in 1998.

Mr Altman said Ms Cao had been “killed in private with no one to see or to tell tales”.

He said: “The prosecution can’t say where the killing took place or where the body has been moved.”

He added that whether by “luck or by design” Ekaireb had left no trace of the killing.

The court heard how Ms Cao’s family in China or her brother in Denmark had heard nothing from her since the day she went missing in October despite Elkaireb telling police he last heard from her in mid-November 2006 and that she had told him she was leaving to stay with friends in Chinatown.